Walki Group

Blocks ransomware in Office 365 with Cloud App Security

Overview

The Walki Group is an international producer of technical laminates and protective packaging materials, specializing in the production of fibre-based, intelligent, multi-laminate products. They have many different uses as diverse as energy-saving facings and construction membranes, to barrier packaging applications.

The Walki Group has production facilities in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, the U.K., Russia, and China. Walki’s annual net sales amount to $300 million euros, and the company has a workforce of about 900 people.

Due to ransomware that had crept into Walki’s network, the company looked for extra security on top of the built-in security for Microsoft® Office 365™ cloud service. After recommendations by colleagues and a short comparison test, Walki decided on Trend Micro Cloud App Security. Its biggest benefits were its easy commissioning and invisibility to end users. Since implementing it, Walki’s security has improved significantly.

Challenges

Walki’s employees had been using Office 365™ since 2013. In the fall of 2015, ransomware got into the company through Office 365™, causing extra work and complicating day-to-day tasks.

After a great deal of effort, the problem was solved, and Walki started to consider how to prevent threats like ransomware, and other targeted threats and unknown threats from getting into the company’s environment.

It was clear that extra security was needed in addition to Office 365™’s built-in security solutions. It needed to check any traffic coming in, going out, and moving inside the company network, as well as files within the cloud environment. Besides Exchange™ Online, the security solution also needed to cover SharePoint® Online and OneDrive® for Business.

The biggest source of problems turned out to be email, which in Walki’s case, as usual, was the favourite way to spread malware for cyber criminals.

Walki needed the extra security to be invisible to end users and not slow down network connections or hamper work in any way.

“The best kind of security doesn’t make every working day more difficult for users and, ensures no malware reaches them. That is the best indicator of security!”

Jarkko Marjasalo,
ICT Director, Walki Group Oy

Why Trend Micro

To find a solution best suited to their needs, Walki’s IT people asked their partners and colleagues from other companies about their experiences.

“Many recommended Trend Micro. The solution is obviously well-known and highly regarded in the business. Based on the recommendations, we compared Trend Micro’s software to another similar software, and after that, making the decision was easy,” says Jarkko Marjasalo.

A particularly attractive feature in Trend Micro’s solution was its easy commissioning. Another clear advantage was the fact that it is a true cloud service—it’s not visible to the user in any way.

Both Trend Micro and the solution provider OptimeSys, a Trend Micro Platinum partner, were new contacts for Walki’s staff.

”It is a bit like buying insurance—you just have to rely on things being taken care of as promised. We decided to go for it, because in our opinion the price of the service was on the right level compared to what new attacks would cost to our business.”

“At the beginning of Cloud App Security testing, we saw that our cloud environment contained malware. The information security included in the Office 365™ environment had missed threats still lurking in there. Trend Micro allowed us to clean up the environment.”

Jarkko Marjasalo,
ICT Director, Walki Group Oy

Solution

After the ransomware problems in the fall, Walki employees looked into different solutions for a couple of months and decided on Trend Micro’s solution in December. They decided to protect their Office 365™ with Cloud App Security.

OptimeSys installed the service for Walki at the beginning of December 2015. First the service was only used by IT management. It went well, so it was extended to all Walki employees. In all, there are about 900 users of the service in different parts of Europe, and some users in China.

“The product was extremely easy to install, and its commissioning took very little time,” says Marjasalo.

Cloud App Security is integrated directly into Microsoft’s cloud, so email traffic doesn’t need to be checked elsewhere and there is no need for a proxy server. And, nothing needs to be installed on the users’ workstations.

Possible advanced threats are stopped at the service residing in the Microsoft Azure™ cloud and isolated into a sandbox to be investigated in Munich, Germany. Depending on the policies set by the client, they are either quarantined or destroyed, and the situation is reported to the people in charge at the client.

“Security reports keep telling us that Cloud App Security catches several threats, including ransomware, every week that would otherwise get through to hamper our business.”

Jarkko Marjasalo,
ICT Director, Walki Group Oy

Results

Walki’s security situation has improved significantly since the ransomware attack last fall. The attack prevention clearly works, as the amount of malware getting into the environment has decreased, and there have been no serious problems.

“You know everything is in order when the end users don’t notice anything. The security software doesn’t make their everyday lives more difficult, and malware doesn’t reach them. That is the best gauge of security,” says Marjasalo.

“At the beginning of Cloud App Security testing, we saw that our cloud environment contained malware. The information security included in the Office 365™ environment had missed threats still lurking in there. Trend Micro allowed us to clean up the environment. Security reports keep telling us that Cloud App Security catches several threats, including ransomware, every week that would otherwise get through to hamper our business.”